La Castidad
by Collie Parkillo
Summary: Your wildest dreams for a bottle of sleeping pills. OrcHoward.


"What can you give me for them?"

Howard knew Penny knew he couldn't afford to be picky. But he didn't just give things away. He wasn't Sam, for crying out loud. And it was just a bottle of pills, each smaller than a fingernail. But it was a bottle of pills that would kill you faster than anything the FAYZ could produce if you misused them. If Penny was taking them for the S-Word, Howard wasn't going to try to talk her out of it. People loved him because he didn't ask any questions.

"Cut the crap, you know what I can do." She looked like the way a cat did when it was scared and it puffed its fur out. Her expression went from sour to sweet so quickly that she'd might as well have been flicking on a light switch. "Your wildest dreams. Totally real."

"Okay. But no funny business or you get no pills and a billion more sleepless nights."

"You can't really say that if your boy Orc's not around," Penny said, and cackled. Howard could feel his expression tighten. Penny grinned and looked him up and down. "Ah. I see." She giggled, and then said no more.

The world around them blurred. Penny was no longer there. Instead Charles "Orc" Merriman stood in front of them. But he didn't look like the Orc Howard had gotten used to. It was human Orc. It scared Howard that he didn't look that much different. A little smaller and human skin, but he still was Orc.

Human skin. Howard reached out to touch him. He ran his hand across his skin, feeling every pore and hair on it. Soft. Real. Human. He felt something in the back of his mind-maybe it was a Penny trick-saying that if you really loved Orc, you would love him just as he is.

Orc's hand go gingerly touched the back of Howard's neck. Howard was trembling. He heard an old grungy rock song in the back of his mind.

 _Come as you are, as you are, as I want you to be..._

Orc's eyes were full of love; the achingly genuine kind and not drunken lust. But it wasn't romance novel love either. It was excited, adolescent love that glinted and glittered rather than shining and shimmering.

"Howard!" Orc said, like he had just noticed he was there. Hearing Orc say his name with such joy was a strange thing to adjust to. Howard leaned up on the very tips of his toes to try to reach Orc's face and was disappointed when he could not. Orc scooped Howard off his feet and rested him on top of his shoulder. Howard found that he loved the feeling of having the ground pulled away from him, just dangling in the air from Orc's big, strong hands. It was flying like a moof could but without the small problem of half Perdido Beach wanting to kill you.

"There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment." Orc said. "That's from the Bible."

Howard didn't want to break the moment by making a snarky religion comment. "I don't think love can be perfect. I mean, if it can be, there sure isn't any of it around here. Everyone's scared out of their fucking minds."

"Try. You can always try to get love perfect," Orc said.

"Let's try it," Howard agreed, smirking. He completely forgot that this wasn't real.

He had never 'made out' with anyone. He'd kissed a girl once in middle school but it was a chaste second and then she'd walked away. He and Orc were ravenous. He forgot that he needed to breathe, forgot anything other than teeth and tongues and the clicking, sucking sound two mouths made.

Howard knew there were two big S-Words in life: Sex and suicide. Life and death. Penny's suicide pills in exchange for blissful, imaginary sex. Without adults maybe sex wasn't such a bad thing anymore. Hell, Caine and Diana were a pair of scrawny, ugly pieces of shitbait. They could screw. Anyone could screw. There were no parents to open doors or leaflets about abstinence laid on students' desks but yet it still felt obscene.

And at least when you were a guy and a girl you had leaflets. Dudes and chicks got warning leaflets, guys and guys and girls and girls got sermons and hate crimes.

But no one was around to preach in the FAYZ. Orc fumbled with Howard's shirt. He was just so _large._ And it was so...he searched for a word that was both eloquent and lewd enough to do justice. His body felt like he was on fire. His heart was hunger and he was being eaten alive.

Then it all disappeared.

Howard's shirt was discarded on the ground. He was soaked in sweat. Penny walked in front of him, looking satisfied. She was tiny. She was unpleasant. She was a girl. A cocktail of angry and aroused pumped through his head. His body, from his joints to his blood, were boiling hot and had a tightness to them, like they were coiled and tied up.

"The pills, Howard," Penny said impatiently.

"Another bottle for another hour."

"I just want one. I gave you exactly what you wanted, now you give me exactly what I want. Capiche?" Howard tossed her the sleeping pills haphazardly and grunted, turning away. "See you around, Howard. Good luck with that boner," Penny said, and laughed her shrieking, ugly laugh. She started away, walking with a skipping step.

He put his head in his hands and stared off into the distance. The darkness at the edge of the FAYZ had crawled up the edge a fair bit now. A little piece stuck up that looked like a middle finger. He thought that he should go back to the lake and the others. Howard shut his eyes and tried to bring the fantasy back, but found nothing except the tiny, twinkling stars underneath his eyelids. He heard that song in his head again.

 _Memoria, memoria..._

* * *

 ** _FEAR_ is killing me. "Come As You Are" is (c) Nirvana. The absolute last thing I want is for Kurt Cobain's estate to sue me. Also, those who've read _FEAR_ : Forgive me for the irony in the line about six paragraphs up.**


End file.
